Chilean Senator Rossi stabbed ahead of General Elections

SANTIAGO – A Chilean senator was hospitalized after an unknown perpetrator stabbed him with a knife while working in a campaign office in Iquique, preparing for Sunday’s elections.

Senator Fulvio Rossi said his father remembered hearing his attacker say in a foreign accent, “We warned you”.

From the hospital’s management, it was assured that his condition is stable and his life is out of danger, according to 24 Horas television.

“The senator is in the hospital where they are doing all the respective examinations, he has an apparent superficial wound in the part of the abdomen and a blow to the head,” regional Chief Prosecutor Raul Arancibia said.

Police report the victim was in his office when two men entered the building and proceeded to attack the politician, striking him on the head with a blunt object and stabbing him in the stomach.

“He went to the office to review some campaign posters at 11:15 a.m. and that’s when they hit him on the head and stabbed him on his side,” the senator’s son, Franco Rossi, told reporters, adding that his father has received a number of threats against his life.

“The attack suffered by Senator Fulvio Rossi, to whom I wish a speedy recovery, is unacceptable,” President Michelle Bachelet wrote on her Twitter account.

“We must, among all, ensure that the political debate always takes place with respect. Chile does not deserve this violence!”

Presidential candidates Sebastian Piñera and Alejandro Guillier also took to the social media to condemn the attack, showing solidarity with the senator.

In October, Mr. Rossi published one of the many threatening letters he received which called for an end to illegal migrations and advising the candidate to watch himself in the street.

The senator answered saying the warnings would not sway him from his immigration proposals and he was not intimidated.